The lower member presents similar facts. According to the calculations borrowed by M. Topinard from M. Broca, the tibia, when compared with the femur, gives a relation of 81·33 for the Negro, and 79·72 for the White.
By adding the figures which express the length of the radius and humerus, we have the total length of the whole arm, with the exception of the hand; and by acting in the same manner for the femur and tibia, we have that of the lower member, with the exception of the foot.
The relation of the former to the latter is 68·27 in the Negro, and 69·73 in the White.
The following is a table of several races, drawn up by M. Topinard from his own researches and those of several other authors:
| Races. | Relation of the inf. to the sup. member. | Relation of the femur to the humerus. | Relation of the tibia to the femur. | ||
| Annamites | 67·5 | 76·7 | 67·5 | ||
| Tasmanians | 68·2 | 83·5 | 84·3 | ||
| Aënos | } | 68·4 | { | 75·2 | 76·8 |
| Bosjesmans | } | { | 75·5 | 83·5 | |
| Andaman Islanders | 70·3 | 79·9 | 81·8 | ||
| Australians | 70·7 | 75·6 | 76·9 | ||
| Blacks of Pondichery | 71·7 | 82·9 | 84·4 | ||
We see that, by this character, the European White is placed between the African Negro and the Andaman Islander.
I have already mentioned some remarkable morphological modifications, such as the prominence of the linea aspera in the femur, the platycnemism of the tibia, etc. I need not repeat them. The clavicle, foot and hand, also suggest many details which I must pass by in silence. I shall only observe that in Abyssinia it is neither by his colour nor his hair that the true Negro is proved to be characterised, but merely by the relatively exaggerated prominence of the heel. But this sign, which has been asserted to be infallible, is wanting in certain Negro races, not only in the Yoloffs, whose inferior member resembles our own, but also in the Bambaras, who have a flat foot.
VII. Characters drawn from, the soft portions; nervous system. After having examined the external forms of the body, and reviewed the skeleton, we must take the organic apparatus one by one, and study them in their turn. Unfortunately the facts collected are here still more rare, when the observations should have been in larger numbers in order to give a definite value to the results. This study, which has been scarcely commenced, has in reality only been brought, till the present time, to bear upon the two most distant terms of the human series: the European White and the African Negro. This alone will justify me in giving a very cursory exposition of the results obtained.
The nervous system, of which Cuvier has said that it is the entire animal, is fortunately the part about which we possess, perhaps, the greatest number of comparative data. In the first place, we meet with a general fact noticed by Sœmmering, and which is established beyond a doubt by the splendid preparations of Jacquard, exhibited in the galleries of the Paris Museum. Relatively to the White, the Negro presents a marked predominance of peripheral nervous expansions. The trunks are thicker, and the fibres more numerous, or perhaps merely easier to isolate, and to preserve on account of their volume alone. On the other hand, the cerebral centres, or at least the brain, appear to be inferior in development.
In fact, in spite of what Blumenbach and Tiedmann have said on this subject, the brain of the Negro is, as a general rule, less voluminous than that of the White. This fact is chiefly the result, it is true, of measurements of the capacity of crania. But determinations of the weight confirm this result.